According to statistics, over 1.9 billion products under the Coca-Cola logo are sold each day around the world. The Coca-Cola Company is an American company with its headquarters located in Atlanta Georgia. The company deals with beverage manufacture, retail, and marketing of various nonalcoholic products. While it is a global brand, the company has its operations localized having more than 250 bottling plants in the world. The Coca-Cola brand is well known and well recognized across all cultures regardless of their location. The company has an intricate and complex systems comprising of various legal and managerial departments which work independent of each other (Ferrell, 2012).
The operations of the company are run through local channels. The company sells the concentrates, syrups, and beverage bases to the bottling plants which they do not own or control. The company however still owns the brand, and they are also tasked with the initiative programs designed at building a consumer brand. The bottling plants are responsible for the manufacture, packaging and distribution of the final product to buyers and other partners who then avail these products to the consumers (Coca-Cola FEMSA, 2014).
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The first thing to understand about the coca cola company is that it is not a single entity as many would think. It operates as a franchise. The bottling partners associated with the company work closely with retail outlets such as convenience stores, grocery stores, supermarkets and much more to ensure that they meet the needs of their consumers. The idea behind the localization of the coca cola company is to ensure that consumers never have to travel far in search of the products. The point of sale for coca cola products include wholesalers, retail, restaurants, petrol stations, automated teller machines, night clubs, hotels, supermarkets and so forth.
One of the distribution systems used by coca cola is the Manual Distribution Center (MDC) model (Littleson, 2014). This kind of system works best in densely populated cities and towns. The MDC works with the local bottler. The MDCs run independent of the bottler but they will receive training and support from the bottler. The bottles and the crates used by the MDCs are owned by the business and they will have a wholesale price for their consumers. When the consumers do not have empty crates or bottles to exchange with, they will be charged for the bottles and the crates they take with them as well as for the liquid they contain. The MDCs can exclusively sell coca cola products or they can sell other beverages as well.
As part of the distribution strategy, the MDCs are run from containers or warehouses painted red and have the coca cola brand name painted on it. They will receive a weekly or so delivery of coca cola products. The relationship between the MDCs and the bottlers is connected in that they run separately but they depend on each other. This system works well in areas where the distance to be travelled is short and the retailers do not have to incur immense transport costs as the crates and bottles can be delivered easily using the closest mode of transport.
Businesses like Coca-Cola need to maintain their profit margin and the one way to ensure this happens is to maintain customer satisfaction (Kumar, 2008). The best way to do this is to maintain a constant supply of the products and services needed by the consumers; to create demand one must have an efficient supply. All this cannot be made possible if the company is not able to keep track of their products, as a result of lacking proper inventory. Companies have various ways in which they can inventory their services.
Service inventory involves the company gathering information from all aspects, from the production to the distribution of the final products (Littleson, 2014). The company needs to have a proper inventory of the entire products even on those products that are discarded for not passing the quality standard. This way there is a record of the profits and loss for the company. Service inventory also includes mandates such as environmental concerns, recycling, and regulation of energy.
Companies that adopt better methods of production that are cost effective to the environment will have a better response from their consumers. The idea behind service inventory is to have the systems within the company from the workers to the machinery in use working to improve the levels of business and at the same time increase efficiency. Each department in the Coca-Cola Company works independently of each other and so the system put in place have the ability to make the work easier and have the team focus on ways to expand their brand (Littleson, 2014). There are various levels of inventory that a company needs to focus on to ensure that they stay ahead of their competition.
There are other factors involved in the service inventory system that includestracking the raw materials used. These are important for the obvious reasons that the raw materials are responsible for the production of the products to be manufactured and processed by Coca-Cola. There is a need to accurately estimate the raw materials used so as to predict the amount of product to be produced over a given period of time. Running out of raw materials will halt production thus making the business suffer (Kumar, 2008).
The second level of inventory is the work in progress which looks into a number of goods the company is producing over a given time frame. This will track the profit being made and it will be easy to pin point a stall in the production process or which areas are not making as much profit as they should. There needs to be an inventory done on the finished goods, in this case, the beverages being put forward by Coca-Cola. The company has numerous channels of distribution and without the right systems in place; it will be difficult to keep track of the sales across the various regions the company is operating.
Coca-Cola is a well-known brand across the globe and they have maintained this status by focusing on how best to keep their clients happy and putting out more products designed for the customer base. The chain of management flows from the headquarters in Atlanta down to the remote locations in Africa and South America. The leaders in the corporate offices ensure that the clients are the frost priority of the company (Ferrell, 2012). This is evident from the campaigns put forward by the company that is all consumer oriented. Campaigns such as ‘open happiness’, ‘taste the feeling’ among others are directed at bringing their consumers together (Kumar, 2008). Customer satisfaction is part of the service inventory for the company. If the consumers are not satisfied with the product put before them or they find that the demand does not meet the supply they will withdraw from the company.
Annotated Bibliography
Coca-Cola FEMSA. (2014). Creating Stories: Annual Report 2015 . Retrieved from http://www.annualreport.femsa.com/descargas/iafemsaeng.pdf
This source is an annual report of the year 2015 that among other information, elaborates Coca-Cola’s strategies in creating customer satisfaction. It informs the reader the partnerships cocacola have had with local bottling plants in the country to ensure that the demand for the products is met. The company is involved in identfying campaigns manet to foster better relations between the clients and the customer. Where the clients feel that the company is concerned with thier welfare, they will be more invlcined to continue purchasing the products. A good example is the share happiness campaing that the company unveiled involving the printing of names onto bottles of coca cola and consumers were exited to pick out bottles with their names and those of their family and friends.
Ferrell, C. O., & Pride, W. M. (2014). Marketing (17th ed.) Mason, Ohio: Cengage Learning.
The book looks at the marketing principles, strategies, and tools used by companies. It engages the reader in understating the current state of marketing and equips them with decision making skills needed to succeed in the competitive business environment. The book also includes new marketing concepts including social networking and digital marketing. The marketing world in business is continuously changing and in order ot stay afloat, companies need to find better startgeies with regard to their markting and in the case of cocacola; incorporate their marketing and sidtribution systems to ensure customer satisfaction.
Kumar, V. (2008). Managing Customers for Profit: Strategies to Increase Profits and Build Loyalty . Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall Professional
This book looks at the science behind customer managament and satisfaction. any business worth its salt understands the needs for customer satisfaction. The way to do this is to have the clients receive value for their money. The book is recommended for individuals looking to cultivate their businesses into profitable successes. Companies need to have a lasting relationship with their clients as this is the only way to understand their needs and deliver on them.
Littleson, R. (2014). Supply Chain Trends: What’s In, What’s Out. Manufacturing.net , 6 Feb. 2007. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.
http://www.manufacturing.net/article/2007/02/supply-chain-trends-whats-whats-out
In this article, Littleson notes that supply chain networks are important to any business as this is what ensures the ability to deliver products and services to clients. poor chains of supply will interfere with the success of the company. The article further acknoledges that as the company looks to expand and delve into new markets, they will be required to deal with global competition and develop new ways to ensure the emand supply chains are kept going. Companies like cocacola are driven by an intense demand for their products andthis is one way of ensuring g they stay ahead of their compaetition and deliver to their consumers.
References
Coca-Cola FEMSA. (2014). Creating Stories: Annual Report 2015 . Retrieved from http://www.annualreport.femsa.com/descargas/iafemsaeng.pdf
Ferrell, C. O.,& Pride, W. M. (2014). Marketing (17th ed.) Mason, Ohio: Cengage Learning.
Kumar, V. (2008). Managing Customers for Profit: Strategies to Increase Profits and Build Loyalty . Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall Professional
Littleson, R. (2014). Supply Chain Trends: What’s In, What’s Out. Manufacturing.net , 6 Feb. 2007. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.
http://www.manufacturing.net/article/2007/02/supply-chain-trends-whats-whats-out
